


pen pals

by PastelTrashKing (AnthonyEStark)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Female Jack Pattillo, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Secret Identity, Swearing, Vagabond Has Feelings, background Gavin/Michael, background Jack/Geoff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-09-28 05:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17176586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnthonyEStark/pseuds/PastelTrashKing
Summary: Ryan’s phone had one number saved on it. The contact picture was blank and the name was simply ‘J’ but it was the only number he needed.The story of how Ryan learned that some things really aren’t better left unsaid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea that got out of hand and I couldn’t decide what to do so here’s one of the plot points that I made into its own fic. 
> 
> I wrote most of the first few chapters on Christmas Day so I hope you all had a happy Christmas! This is a short chapter but I wanted to establish the crew before the real plot begins!

Ryan’s phone had one number saved on it. The contact picture was blank and the name was simply ‘J’ but it was the only number he needed.

R: [1:47AM] _just joined a crew. they seem nice._

Well, _nice_ was one way to put it.

 

xxx

 

Always armed with his iconic skull mask, Ryan became the Vagabond and brought death upon the people of Los Santos.

For a man with few social skills and far too much knowledge on how to murder somebody, being a mercenary seemed to be the best job that Ryan could get into. He was used to completing missions as a duo, but killing is still just killing and one man can do the job perfectly fine by himself.

Ryan had a hit on the infamous Kingpin of Los Santos, Geoff Ramsey. The shady man who had offered him the contract was vague on how much Ryan would be paid for the job, but promised that the sum would be so large that he couldn’t refuse.

Geoff had taken to Ryan the moment he found the Vagabond planting an ignition bomb in his hot pink car. Sure, there was a lot of gunfire and swearing that followed, but Ryan had managed to get the leader of the Fakes pinned to a wall and was prepared for the man to beg for his life. What he didn’t expect was for Geoff to break out in a grin and offer Ryan a place in his crew, stating that they needed someone just like the Vagabond to scare their rivals.

As Ryan soon found out, the man offering the hit contract on Geoff wasn’t prepared to pay much for the job, so he slit his throat and took everything out of his pockets. There was barely enough money to cover his rent for the month and Ryan was glad that he didn’t actually kill Geoff, knowing that keeping the man alive and in his favour was far more valuable than most sums of money.

After yet another threat to be kicked out by his landlord for another late rent payment, Ryan accepted Geoff’s invitation to join the Fakes and he agreed to meet with the man again on friendlier terms.

The meeting place was a fast food shop that Ryan didn’t even know existed and the girl behind the counter seemed unfazed when the masked man entered, obviously used to the weirdos of Los Santos. The reason of the location became clear when he spotted Geoff at a table with the infamous Mogar, who had a stack of burger wrappers in front of him and was currently eating another.

The two men looked very out of place in the establishment, yet were exactly the sort of people you expected to see eating fast food past midnight. Mogar’s scruffy hair was distinguishable from afar, curls bouncing as the man enthusiastically ate as though it was his first meal in weeks. Geoff, on the other hand, looked like he had just woken up and was about to fall asleep at any second, casually eating fries with his attention firmly on the phone in his hand.

“Sorry if I’m intruding on your date.” Ryan deadpanned as he sat opposite the two men.

“I’m surprised you showed, Vagabond. This is Mogar,” Geoff put down his phone and gestured to the younger man with sauce dripping down his chin, “He refused to join us unless there was food available.”

Ryan nodded politely at Mogar and received a muffled, “It’s Michael,” in response before the man continued his burger, seemingly oblivious to the other two at the table. The vague thought that Mogar- Michael reminded him of somebody that he used to know was interrupted by Geoff wiggling a fry in front of his face, making Ryan go cross-eyed for a second.

“You want a fry?”

Ryan waved the hand away, “No, thank you.”

“Burger?” Geoff shrugged, eating the fry and nodding his head in the direction of Michael.

Michael perked up at that, holding an arm protectively around his mess of wrappers. “Hands off! Get your own!”

“I appreciate the offer but I thought this would be a more,” Ryan paused, trying to think of the best word to use, “formal meeting.”

“Fuck formal, we’re celebrating your recruitment! You’re a Fake now!” Geoff laughed around a mouthful of fries.

As Ryan soon found out later on, Geoff treated all of his crew as though they were family, with the headquarters of the Fake AH Crew based in Geoff’s penthouse and everybody given their own room. Living as a solo mercenary hadn’t provided Ryan with a stable living environment and it was only when he moved to Los Santos, full of people who needed killing, that he was able to finally rent a small apartment on the outskirts of the city. The idea that he could live somewhere as big as Geoff’s place was something he had never even dreamed of and was honestly the main reason why he considered the offer.

“Oh wow, he really is scary ain’t he?” A voice with a strong accent that Ryan assumed was from somewhere in England spoke up, giggling at the end of the sentence.

Ryan whipped his head round to glare at whoever said that, spotting the culprit leaning over the back of a plush sofa with his excitement obvious upon his face. A large TV was behind the man and a game that Ryan recognised was paused on the screen, which he would have mentioned if it was not for the argument that started.

“Piss off, Gavin! Your nose is the only scary thing here!” Michael yelled at the man, who Ryan now knew was called Gavin.

Gavin didn’t seem bothered by the sudden shouting and raised his voice to the same level, “But Michael, he’s creeping me out!”

“Don’t fucking look at him then! Just say hi like a normal person, dipshit!”

Geoff sighed and turned to Ryan while the shouting continued, “That’s Gavin. He’s the smartest dumb person you will ever meet.”

“I can tell.” Ryan replied, although he did find the two men amusing to watch.

An intimidating woman stood in the doorway, dressed in fluffy pyjamas but with the intent to murder written upon her face. “Can I have one day where you guys don’t yell over my shows?”

The argument immediately stopped and the two men looked sheepishly at the woman, muttering out apologies before sitting on the couch together. There seemed to be no hard feelings between the pair as Michael picked up the remote and continued the game that Gavin was originally playing.

Upon seeing Geoff and Ryan, the woman’s face lit up and she hurried over to them with a different kind of excitement than Gavin. “Hello there, Mr Vagabond, sir! It’s a pleasure for you to join our family.”

“Just Vagabond is fine.” Ryan was taken aback at how the woman was the same height as him and wondered if she just seemed taller because he was used to working with short people.

Geoff put his arm around the woman with a friendly smile, “This is Jack, my lovely wife and our getaway driver.”

“Oh, Geoffrey, you flatter me!” Jack replied sarcastically, grabbing Ryan’s arm and pulling him towards the doorway she entered from, “Make sure these guys don’t start yelling again or I will make them sleep outside tonight.”

She gestured Ryan down a long hallway with doors on either side, which he assumed led to the bedrooms. Her upbeat manner didn’t seem natural for somebody up this late but it was weirdly comfortable.

“Well, I guess you’ve met Gavin then?”

Ryan nodded, “Yeah, he called me scary.”

“I’m sure he meant no offence. He’s arguably the smartest person here but sometimes he can be a bit blunt with his words.” She replied, obviously used to apologising for what Gavin has said to people before by the tone of her voice.

“No offence taken,” Ryan chuckled, “At least I know my mask does its intended job.”

Jack laughed too as she stopped outside of a room at the end of the corridor and opened the door slightly with a gentle push, “This here is your room! If you need anything I’m next door and if you don’t like it then the room opposite is also free.”

“I’m sure this one will be perfectly fine, thank you.” He gave her a small smile, only realising afterwards that he still had his mask on.

“Not a problem! We’ll go over officially moving in tomorrow and I’ll give you a full tour of the place too.” She patted Ryan on the back and then disappeared into her own room with a wave.

Ryan would have thought that the deal was too good to be true if it wasn’t for how genuinely kind the woman was and how welcoming the others had been. Well, except for Gavin, but the lad seemed nice enough.

He pushed the door open fully and was taken back at how spacious the bedroom was. His apartment was only slightly bigger than the room before him and was nowhere near as nice. The room was bare and looked so pristine that it was like nothing in there had been touched since Geoff had moved in. It was far too late to go back and get his stuff so it was staying that way for the night.

The sound of Michael and Gavin’s new round of yelling drifted through the walls that were too thin and if he listened close enough he could make out exactly what they were saying.

Although his welcome to the crew was weird, they seemed... nice.

This was nice.

He fell back on to the bed, enjoying how plush the mattress felt as he sunk into it, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. The small device was as battered and bruised as he was, but still able to text the one number he had saved on it.

R: [1:47AM] _just joined a crew. they seem nice._


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a weird month as a member of the Fakes.

Geoff had an “amazing” idea for a heist, which started as a dumb joke and quickly became the only thing that the man had talked about for the past couple of weeks. The master plan was to rob the high-end stores of Los Santos when they were shut on Christmas Day. It wasn’t an original plan, sure, but Geoff insisted that it was a great idea and Ryan didn’t want to let the man down so he went along with it.

They soon found out that it absolutely wasn’t an original plan and there was a rival crew aiming to do the exact same heist. Geoff’s new plan was to kill off the other crew and it was then that Ryan knew he had chosen the right crew to join. Murder happened to be a hobby of his.

Ryan was quickly initiated into the crew through a series of negotiations and weapon deals, with Geoff using the Vagabond’s intimidating persona to his advantage. People gave up a lot more information when faced with a knife-wielding mercenary.

It was almost Christmas and it was easy to capture a rival informant while he was doing some last minute present shopping. Geoff needed to get more information before he gave his heist plan the green light and this man was apparently the best person to ask. Once they had managed to get the man to an empty warehouse, Geoff had gone into another room to get answers out of the man - the screams suggesting his preferred method of getting information.

Ryan was outside of the room with Jack and Gavin, with muffled cries for help providing a background noise as they chatted amongst themselves. It was the coldest day of the year so far and Ryan was shivering even though he had his thick jacket on, that probably provided extra warmth from the layers of blood encrusted upon it. Gavin had opted for his usual obnoxious golden attire but with a large fur coat over his shoulders, which he had assured Ryan was fake fur multiple times that day. Jack seemed the warmest of the three as she wore a leather jacket from “Geoff’s biker years” over multiple sweaters.

He liked the crew but didn’t feel comfortable enough to reveal his true identity, which he knew was due to being too used to living on the run but he couldn’t fight with his anxieties. After the past month, he wanted to think that his place in the crew was permanent but couldn’t make himself believe it just yet. It was safer to stay as the Vagabond, or ‘V’ as the crew liked to call him.

Other than the initial comments, nobody in the crew seemed to care that Ryan spent all of his time behind a skull mask and refused to tell them his real name. Geoff was very open about who he was and what he did but understood that it wasn’t for everybody, allowing for everybody in the crew to use whatever codename they wished.

Gavin, even though most of the time he kept his identity secret as the Golden Boy, didn’t let the mask deter him from finding out as much about the mysterious Vagabond as possible.

“So, V,” Gavin started with a dumb grin on his face, “Do you get, like, real sweaty behind that mask, V?”

Ryan sighed at the question, tired of the constant nagging by now. “It’s December, nobody is sweaty at this time of year.”

He liked Gavin and initially found the questions funny. _“Do you like cats, V?” “Oh, V, would you switch bodies with Jack for a million dollars?”_ It was less entertaining after almost an hour of the dumb questioning and even Jack’s attention had gone back to her phone, the soft music indicating that she was playing a game.

“But what if it ain’t- Michael, boy!” Gavin’s attention snapped to the man who had just walked in, waving his arms as though the initial shout didn’t already get Michael’s attention.

Michael stormed over to the group, rubbing his hands together to try and warm them up, “The car’s fucking freezing, can we hurry this shit up already?”

“Torture takes time, Michael, you should know this by now.” Jack responded without looking up from her phone.

“Just leave the bastard outside and he’ll talk,” Michael’s sentence was cut short by a full-body shiver that made him stutter. “Fucking HELL, I’m _COLD_!”

“We’re all cold, you’re not special.” Gavin responded, also shivering but not making as much of a fuss about it.

Michael got a playful look in his eyes and went over to where Gavin was standing, “Come here, dickhead. Lemme warm my hands up on you.”

Gavin went to run but was too slow and had been seized by Michael. He went to wriggle free before his other arm was grabbed, “Ew, no! Get off! You’re all gammy, ew!”

“Fuckin’ quick squawking and warm me up already!” Michael grinned as he tried to get a better grip on Gavin while the other man tried to escape.

“Aw, they’re hugging!” Jack laughed sarcastically, which was quickly followed by a sigh as she turned her attention back to her game, “You fuckers made me fail the level, thanks.”

“Michael! Get off!” Gavin whined loudly, laughing as he attempted to shove Michael’s grabby hands off of him.

Michael was also laughing and had managed to shove his hands under Gavin’s shirt as the other man squirmed, “I will when you stop being warm!”

Ryan got out his own phone in an attempt to ignore the play fighting - which was probably flirting but Ryan didn’t feel as though it was his place to point this out to them - and instinctively pulled up his texts to ‘J’. The two of them had been texting each other for years now and the messages were a comfort. There was still no response to his earlier message about how he had only just wrapped his presents, but he figured another text couldn’t hurt.

R: [4:03PM] _two of the guys remind me of when we were a team. not quite as murderous but just as dumb._

Reading over the text again once it was sent, he realised that he unintentionally implied that ‘J’ was dumb and scrambled to write another, even though he was unlikely to get a reply any time soon.

R: [4:04PM] _i didn’t mean that we were dumb, we just did dumb things. don’t want any confusion._

“GEEEoOOOooOFF! MICHAEL’S BEING A SMEGGY LITTLE BITCH AGAIN!” Gavin yelled, the sound echoing through the empty building. He had managed to get knocked to the ground with Michael now sitting on him.

A shout came from the other room, muffled by the closed door but loud enough that the words were clear, “Geoff’s busy!”

“No escape from me, Gavvy-boy!” Michael giggled as he watched Gavin try and get up unsuccessfully.

A particularly piercing scream from the victim in the other room made the four crew members look up from what they were doing and glance towards the door.

Gavin had given up fighting Michael and was now just prodding the other man, “Jack, you tell Geoff to hurry up! I’m freezing and Michael’s heavy.”

“Oi!” Michael protested, poking Gavin in the side and making him laugh.

Jack rolled her eyes and pocketed her phone, “Fine, I’ll see how long it will take.”

The notification for a new text lit up Ryan’s phone screen and he scrambled to open the message, butterflies swarming in his stomach even though this was nowhere near the first time that he’s received a text from ‘J’. Even though he tried to stick to his persona of the emotionless Vagabond when on a job, he allowed himself a little smile behind the mask. Nobody was paying attention to him anyway.

J: [4:09PM] _sounds fun! lmk if u see my latest hit in the news ;)_

He knew that the other man probably didn’t care as much for Ryan’s messages but the fact that he always responded was enough to show that he still cared even slightly.

R: [4:11PM] _will do!_

Jack returned from the other room, the brief time the door was open allowing Ryan to hear the whimpering that had replaced the screaming before the door was slammed shut again. “He says he’s just finishing up now. I’m gonna go get the car warmed up.”

Gavin squirmed around on the floor and let out a weak laugh, “Michael’s arse is actually making me warmer.”

“Don’t make this weird,” Michael huffed, looking up at Ryan with a laugh, “He always makes this weird.”

“You’re weird!” Gavin shouted, trying to get up again with no success.

“You’re the one saying you like my ass, fuckwit!”

“Not like that, boy!”

“You definitely said you like Michael’s ass.” Ryan added, smirking behind his mask at the squawk that Gavin made.

There was a final scream from the other room and then the building fell silent. Geoff opened the door shortly after, tucking a switchblade into his the inner pocket of his suit jacket, “Come on, fuckers. We got shit to do.”

“We need to get moving before-” Geoff paused as he caught sight of the two lads on the floor, “What the fuck are you doing down there?”

“Chillin’.” Michael responded, slapping his hand over Gavin’s mouth as the other man went to shout in protest.

Geoff shook his head in exasperation and walked away in the direction that Jack went, “Stay there then, I don’t care.”

It took another argument between the lads and a shout from Geoff to finally get the crew into the car and onto their next job. Jack had her music up as high as the car would let her and Geoff had to yell on the phone to the B-team to arrange a cleanup. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the loudest car ride that Ryan had been on with the crew and he was thankful that there weren’t cops chasing them for once.

Remembering the text from earlier, Ryan pulled up the news app on his phone and a red banner announced that there was breaking news; a politician in the next state had recently been assassinated and the killer was untraceable. He knew instantly that this had to be the job that ‘J’ mentioned, nobody else could execute somebody that cleanly.

R: [5:15PM] _nice job. :)_

xxx

Nobody knew about how the Vagabond started his career in crime and murder. One day Los Santos was filled with powerful people with hits placed upon them by their many rivals, and then the next day many of them were dead and their bounties collected by a man in a skull mask.

The Agency was designed to create the world’s best killers and use them for top secret missions that required the highest of skills. It was a brutal course that was almost suicidal to sign up for and preyed upon the most desperate of people for their new recruits. Ryan found their details while on the run from the police and decided that it sounded a lot more fun than prison. Who he had killed to become one of America’s most wanted was irrelevant but it was enough to qualify him for the Agency’s training and he decided that there was worse things to do with his life. Maybe.

Once the recruits had completed their initial training, they were paired up and sent to do bigger jobs to prove their worth. The Agency claimed that this was to ensure that all agents could have somebody to rely on, Ryan assumed that they did this just to see who would kill their partner first. Many of the matchups didn’t work and this led to many arguments and, predictably, quite a few deaths.

Jeremy was perfect.

Ryan had always been a lone wolf type and knew that he didn’t work well with others. He was ready to refuse having a partner until he found out it was Jeremy and then he was absolutely up for it. The two of them had got along superbly in training and were always the top two of the group, it was perfect.

Jeremy was just as weird as Ryan was and their missions always ended in far more deaths than necessary, but they knew that the Agency liked them too much to fire them. The man was amazing at his job, funnier than anybody Ryan had ever met before and impossibly good looking - even if his preferred colour scheme of orange and purple wasn’t always useful in stealthy situations.

They called themselves the Battle Buddies and were inseparable when they were on missions and back at base. Ryan knew that there was a betting pool for when the ‘finally’ got together, with most people assuming that they were already dating. Jeremy didn’t seem to mind the gossip but always awkwardly laughed at any prying questions.

It was no surprise that Ryan fell for the man and they may have been something more if it wasn’t for the Agency being compromised and all the agents being forced to run for their lives, which led to Ryan creating the Vagabond as his new persona. The two of them kept in contact and almost got the duo back together but their lives slowly grew further apart, with new missions getting in the way of friendships.

It didn’t take long for the Vagabond to become the most feared and effective assassin in the city, years of training finally given a real challenge. And Jeremy? If he’s managed to make a name for himself then Ryan is yet to hear about it.

xxx

It would have been nice to get time to sleep on Christmas Day but maybe Ryan was just hoping for too much. He picked his phone up from the nightstand and squinted at how bright the screen was, waiting a few seconds before his eyes adjusted enough to see the time.

[6:34AM]

In his dream, the Battle Buddies were testing new weapons in the Agency’s training range. It was a scene that had happened many times in real life, yet this time the room was bigger and the weapons kept changing suddenly, which wasn’t questioned because Ryan only had eyes for Jeremy. The man was identical to how he looked years ago and didn’t question why Ryan looked different, as if the two of them had never separated.

It was only when Ryan started to question what was happening that he woke up and couldn’t will himself back to sleep to continue his dream. In the light of his phone screen, he could see the black face paint flaking around his eyes and decided that a shower in silence was a rare luxury he shouldn’t waste.

By the time he was done and dressed, carefully painting a new skull on his face, the rest of the crew had woken up and could be heard talking in the other rooms. For once, Gavin and Michael seemed to be having a civil conversation and there was no yelling to be heard. Yet. Christmas miracles did exist.

Ryan went to put on his mask and instead checked his phone. No new messages. He didn’t expect Jeremy to be up this early anyway - the man was always the last one awake when they were in the Agency and Ryan would have found it somewhat endearing if they weren’t constantly in trouble for being late.

R: [7:05AM] _merry christmas jeremy :)_

Allowing himself one final moment of cliché sentiment, he pulled on his mask and headed out to greet the rest of the crew, wishing a merry Christmas to them all before taking his seat at the kitchen table. Gavin was bouncing on his chair, glancing between the pile of presents under the tree and where Michael was sat next to Ryan. The movement was making Gavin’s chair squeak and Geoff must have been in a good mood because he didn’t tell Gavin to shut up like he usually did, he just reminded the lad that presents weren’t to be opened until later in the day.

Jack was the last to enter the room, dressed in an elf hat and shorts that made Ryan feel cold just by looking at them. “What are we doing, Geoff?”

Geoff laughed and threw his hands up, “We’re heisting, baby!”

The plan was gone over once more and then the crew were left to get their final preparations ready while Geoff called around their allies to ensure that everything would run smoothly. Ryan felt a vibration in his pocket and he had to hand his gun to Jack so that he could get his phone out.

“Ooh, who’s the lucky person who gets to text the Vagabond?” Jack asked, obviously looking over Ryan’s shoulder even though she tried to hide it.

Ryan turned his phone screen away from Jack and gave her one of his murderous glares, “Just an old friend.”

Jack shrugged at that and walked off to join the others getting their weapons ready, “Thanks for the gun. It’s mine now.”

J: [7:58AM] _merry christmas battle buddy :)_

Ryan wanted to respond to the message but didn’t know what to reply with, afraid that what he wanted to say would sound too desperate. He knew from the start that Jeremy would never like him the same way and didn’t want to lose his best friend.

He looked up over the rest of the crew who were arguing about who would steal the most and wondered what happened to the old Ryan who wouldn’t have put up with other people for this long. The only person he could stand was Jeremy, preferring to stay in their room playing games rather than socialising.

His hands worked faster than his brain and he’d written a text to Jeremy without realising.

R: [8:02AM] _i miss you_

The message was quickly erased before he impulsively sent it.

Not that it mattered, it wasn’t like he would see Jeremy ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can kinda tell that this was supposed to be out nearer to christmas heh,,,, uni is kicking my ass and unfortunately my dissertation does take priority but i do write little bits when i can! thank you for your patience, i’ll try and get the chapter 3 up asap (special thanks to katie for beta reading about 6 lines of this haha)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know if anything is wrong with this!
> 
> _I'm over on tumblr too @ewgenji!_
> 
> Update: This fic hasn't been abandoned but it will not be updated until I finish university in May.


End file.
